In some commercial and residential situations, rechargeable batteries such as those used in golf carts, boats, mining machinery, or other devices may sit unused for an extended period of time. As such, the battery may slowly drain, lose its charge, and be unable to provide power when the need eventually arises. In an effort to maintain a continuous full charge in the battery, some battery chargers provide a float charge after the battery is fully charged to continuously “top off” the battery charge. However, the required float charge is directly dependent on the temperature of the battery and thus needs to dynamically change to account for changes in the temperature of the battery. For example, the required float charge at night can be different from the required float charge during the day due to daily temperature differences. Therefore, some of these types of battery chargers require internal logic and temperature sensing components to constantly maintain a proper charge in the underlying battery. Further, some of these types of battery chargers require constant power from an outside source to continuously apply a float charge to the battery. However, when a power outage occurs, the battery can begin to discharge naturally and lose voltage. Oftentimes the battery may have only partially discharged when the power returns and the battery begins recharging.
While a variety of battery chargers have been made and used, it is believed that no one prior to the inventors have made or used an invention as described herein.
The drawings are not intended to be limiting in any way, and it is contemplated that various embodiments of the invention may be carried out in a variety of other ways, including those not necessarily depicted in the drawings. The accompanying drawings incorporated in and forming a part of the specification illustrate several aspects of the present invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention; it being understood, however, that this invention is not limited to the precise arrangements shown.